Patients with cancers of the base of tongue, tonsils, soft palate and pharynx who underwent TransOral Robotic Surgery, or TORS, as the first line of treatment experienced an average three-year survival from time of diagnosis.

Most notably, the study’s preliminary results reveal oropharyngeal cancer patients who are p16 negative — a marker for the human papilloma virus, or HPV, that affects how well cancer will respond to treatment — have good outcomes with TORS in combination with radiation and/or chemotherapy.

“For non-surgical patients, several studies have shown that p16 positive throat cancers, or HPV- related throat cancers, have better survival and less recurrence than p16 negative throat cancers,” says study lead author Tamer Ghanem, M.D., Ph.D., director of Head and Neck Oncology and Reconstructive Surgery Division in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital.

“Within our study, patients treated with robotic surgery had excellent results and survival, irrespective of their p16 status.”